England stories and tales

Many myths and legends find their home in Ancient Greece, where mythology has thrived for centuries. However, England has its very own heritage of myths and legends that includes some of the most well-known and popular legends in the world.

With the recent release of Ridley Scott’s new film, Robin Hood, the passion and interest for true English myths and legends has certainly been revitalised and many of the locations connected with these stories can still be visited today.
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Summer is nearly upon us and offers the perfect opportunity to take a weekend break and explore England. The North of England is home to many of most beautiful and interesting destinations that are perfect for weekend breaks. The Peak District, Liverpool, York, Newcastle and the Northumberland National Park all call the north home and illustrate the vast array of unique locations you can find in northern England.

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Looking for something a bit different? In reasonable shape? Why not try the C2C cycle route! If you are a keen cyclist, or looking for an excuse to get in shape it could be just the thing for you.

The C2C – Coast to Coast – route runs from western Cumbria, at Whitehaven, to Sunderland on England’s north-east coast and passes through a great deal of beautiful countryside.

The route is more suited to a mountain bike than to dedicated road bikes but has no particularly challenging sections. That does not mean it’s completely flat, but it does means you won’t be cycling along Striding Edge in a blizzard.

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This article features three traditional English recipes – Cornish Pasty, Scotch Eggs and Bread and Butter Pudding – that are still very common in England today: I hope you enjoy them!

Cornish Pasty Recipe

Ingredients:

• Short crust pastry (make your own: 1/2 lb flour and 1/2 cup of lard)
• Potatoes (peeled and diced into small cubes)
• Stewing steak (diced)
• Onion (diced—optional)
• Pinch of salt / Pinch of pepper / Pinch of flour / Dollop of butter

Method:

• Roll out the pastry on a floured surface and cut it to roughly the same size of a dinner plate.
• Place the pastry circle onto a piece of aluminum foil and place the diced steak, potatoes, and onions in the center of the pasty.Leave enough room so that when folded in half there is still room at the edges to pinch them together.
• Season the filling with salt and pepper, a dab of butter, and a pinch of flour.
• Fold the pastry in half and pinch the edges together. You may want to use a bit of water on your fingertips to help seal it.
• Fold up the foil around the pasty and crunch it together at the top.
• Cook in the oven at 375 degrees F. for about two hours. During the last half hour, open up the foil to allow the edges of the pasties to brown.

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It was sometime in 1085 that William the Conqueror had the idea of the Domesday Book, an ambitious project to list all the landowners in England – including how much land they owned, what it was used for, and what it was worth.

During the course of the next year or so groups of Royal officers visited each county and held public enquiries to determine the land ownership of that county, with the help of a local ‘jury’ or committee. Remarkably the project was completed in 1086 and covered more than 13000 landowners across the country, an astonishing achiecvement given the technology and information available, and the absence of efficient transport in many parts of the country.

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Humorist Dave Barry once wrote that the traditional dishes of England include “Toad in the Hole, Bubble and Squeak, Cock-a-Leekie Soup, Spotted Dick, Bug-in-a-Bucket, Willie One-Polyp, Tonsil-and-Toast, Whack-a-Doodle Johnson, and Fester Pudding.” If you’re familiar with UK food, you already know that only about half of those names are jokingly fabricated, while the other half, despite the distasteful sound, are decidedly real.

The names of British cheeses can also ring strangely in American ears, and there are a lot of them to do the ringing. With over 700 types of cheese being made and sold in the Queen’s land, it can be daunting for a tourist to select one in the first place. With that in mind, here are some of the oddest-sounding British cheeses, and a brief guide to what lies beneath the laughable moniker.

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A remarkable story of courage and human endeavour, the story of the Lynmouth lifeboat incident takes place in 1899. It is of course a true story (originally related in print in ‘An Illustrated History of Lynton and Lynmouth’ by John Travis) and is related here in tribute to the brave men involved.

The story takes place on the north Devon coast, starting on the 12th January 1899.

At that time Jack Crocombe was in charge of the Lynmouth lifeboat. He received a telegram that a large ship was having difficulties just off Porlock, and was in danger of crashing on the coast.

The three masted ship called the Forrest Hall was being pulled by tug along the Bristol Channel but the cable between the two boats had broken, threatening both the ship and the 18 people on board. The anchors weren’t holding very well and the ship steering equipment was damaged and unusable.

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Richard Arkwright (1733-1792) did perhaps more than any other single person to transform the face of England and to help usher in the modern world as we know it.

On a basic level he revolutionised the world of cotton weaving in the 18th century, bringing prosperity to a large part of northern England – especially himself. He achieved this by the use of the ’spinning frame’ – an invention which produced stronger cotton more efficiently than the existing ’spinning jenny’, and later through a water-powered variant called the ‘water frame’.

The exact inventor of the spinning jenny and spinning frame are slightly unclear, with various contendors (Thomas Highs, John Jay, Richard Arkwright, James Hargreaves). But 200 years later, knowing the name of the real inventor is perhaps less important than what followed.

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Queen Boadicea (aka Queen Boudica) lived in the Norfolk region of England where she was wife to King Prasutagas, head of the Iceni tribe.

Our knowledge of her life and actions is incomplete, but it is accepted that she was a person of royal birth who had two daughters. It is also said that she was fierce looking, with a strident voice and a great mass of red hair.

Following an earlier attempt at rebellion against the Romans by Prasutagus, about 10 years earlier, the Iceni lived a moderately peaceful life. This lasted until King Prusatagas died. It seems he had left a share of the territory to the Romans as his legacy, as a kind of ‘peace offering’.

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The history of King Arthur is a fine legend, with all the adventure and excitement we could hope for. Kings and battles, magic and great knights, all placed in cliff top castles, far off places and foreign lands.

King Arthur – the story

Sometime around the beginning of the 6th century Prince Pendragon, a mighty soldier, was slain in a battle between the Saxons and the Britons. His brother, Uther Pendragon, took control, aided by the wise Merlin.

With the help of Merlin’s magic, Uther managed to seduce Igrain, by magically pretending to be her husband Gerlois (he had sent her husband into exile first). This trickery produced a child, Arthur, who was born at Tintagel.

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